He tried to draw her into the outer room, but she clung to him and kept him in the darkness, forcing him to feel her animal possession of him and hunger for him. Rage and the desire for self-preservation thrust back his pity and he carried her back to the outer room.
Then it was some moments before she could recover herself. She stood giggling and laughing nervously, almost hysterically.
“Renny, dear,” she said, “you did say once we’d go off together. I want to. I want to. I’m sorry I went on working. I oughtn’t to have done that. We ought to have had a house and me looking after it.”
“You would have been even more unhappy.”
“I’m not unhappy, Renny, dear. You’ve come back. And there’s that coming——”
(“She must be kept off that,” he thought.)
“Old Martin’s been that kind,” she said. “He says he’ll see us through if it’s money.”
“I can make enough money,” he replied, and then stopped, puzzled and startled by the malicious pleasure that came into her eyes. He leaned forward the better to see her, for the gas jet was flickering, and she turned away with a half smile that was exasperatingly silly.
“It isn’t money,” he said, “and you know it. I’ve seen Kilner.”